IMPEACHMENT, ILHAN OMAR ON SOLEIMANI, TRUMP’S LEGAL AUTHORITY
Supposedly “neutral” journalists rejoiced, tweeting out “Impeachmas” cheers to their followers. Hardcore Trotskyists, Socialists, Maoists, Communists, Castroists, Che Guevarists, and other members of the progressive Left, celebrated all over the country. At long last, their three-and-a-half-year quest to impeach Trump, which started in April 2016, was close to fruition.
Trump’s Legal Authority Like other Presidents, he has the power to use military force against terrorists and to defend against attacks.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-legal-authority-11578095410
You may have read that Donald Trump can’t do anything right, and apparently now he’s exceeded his authority as President by ordering a drone strike against Qasem Soleimani without congressional approval. That’s the claim being made by Democrats and various legal worthies, except they’re wrong on the law and Constitution.
Mr. Trump is accused of violating the executive order against assassinations. But that long-time ban has never applied to terrorists, which Soleimani clearly was. He ran Iran’s Quds Force, which the Bush Administration designated as a terror group in 2007. He was also a general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which Mr. Trump designated as a terror group last year. If Mr. Trump’s drone strike was illegal, then so were Barack Obama’s raid on Osama bin Laden and his hundreds of drone strikes over eight years as President.
Mr. Trump also has the power, as Commander in Chief, to use military force against anyone waging war against the U.S. The Quds Force has been doing that for years, going back to the Iraq war and recently with the rocket attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq by militia under Soleimani’s control. Soleimani was a general in the chain of command of the enemy, and as such was a justifiable target. An analogy is the U.S. decision to shoot down Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto’s plane in World War II.
Congress had declared war on Japan, but under international law there is no need for such a declaration when a nation is acting in self-defense. The drone strike in Iraq was a defensive military action intended to prevent attacks on U.S. troops by an enemy general who had ordered such attacks in the past. Numerous Presidents have used force in such a way without Congressional approval, including Ronald Reagan in 1986 against Libya after the terror bombing at a Berlin nightclub killed three people, including two American soldiers.
Some say Mr. Trump’s drone strike is different because it has the potential to become a larger conflict with Iran and thus needs Congressional assent. But Mr. Obama’s Libya intervention also had the potential to become a larger conflict, as did JFK’s naval blockade of Cuba. The consequences of any military action are hard to predict.
The question for these critics is whether they would be making the same arguments if someone else were President. We doubt it.
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